The Morning Show is determined to show us it is willing to go there. To plough into the conversations we're sort of having on X, or at least were having a couple years ago on Twitter. This is a show prepared to mine everything: the #MeToo movement, cancel culture, institutional racism, abortion rights, the war in Ukraine, cyber threats, the January 6 insurrection. And most of that's just been the first few episodes of season three.
To say this show is a mess is to do an injustice to the word mess. Because this is an uber mess, among the mightiest of messes that ever did mess. Like the fifty thousand various storylines in The Morning Show, the level of mess just keeps growing, spawning like a litter of gerbils that's gone past the point of asserting control over. It is its own self-sustaining mess. We might soon be able to classify it as part of the animal kingdom.
But in spite of all that, it is still an incredibly watchable show and, perhaps because of all its faults, it's also enormously enjoyable to tune into. That phenomenon has much in common with the love-to-hate-it summer hit And Just Like That, HBO Max's deranged spin-off of Sex and the City.
One fan of that show captured the viewing experience, writing on Twitter: "And Just Like That is so wild because I watch every episode through my fingers like a horror movie and when it’s over I wish it was five hours longer." All that equally applies to The Morning Show.
Take the latest episode of the Apple TV+ show, in which institutional racism at UBA rears its ugly head when Cory (Billy Crudup) decides to leak an email from board member Cybil (Holland Taylor), under the ruse it's part of a wider hack of the company database. The hack will likely turn out to be either the tech billionaire Paul Marks (Jon Hamm – side note, who did Elon Musk pay for this ludicrous on-screen glow-up?) or the Russians. Each explanation is equally preposterous.
Anyway, once Cybil has been ousted after a disastrous on-air interview with the subject of said racist email, Chris (Nicole Beharie), Cory creepily stands at the boardroom window to watch Cybil go down, fogging up the glass like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park.
What to Read Next
Cory then goes in search of Paul to further his merger scheme, but only finds his assistant Amanda (Tig Notaro), who is given some reaching-for-Succession-but-missing-the-mark dialogue as she asks: "You got some pep in your step – recharged after sleeping in your coffin all day?"
Every episode brings new agonising morsels for us to marvel at. The season premiere saw Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) shot into space. The second saw her and Cory deal with a potential sex video leak, which seemed important enough to entertain a ransom payment, but by the third episode, the whole thing has been all but forgotten. Maybe they'll remember it a couple more episodes down the line.
The issue with The Morning Show's muddled messaging may in part be the way it came to be on our screens. What was initially intended to be a fluffy insight into the behind-the-scenes ratings jockeying of a daytime news show was overhauled when sexual misconduct allegations emerged against news anchor Matt Lauer.
The Morning Show was then re-engineered to focus on a show reeling from similar allegations against Mitch Kessler (played by Steve Carell). Yet by the time we reached season two, that storyline had lost all links to reality and bizarrely started to sympathise with Mitch, before the whole thing quite literally went off a cliff.
It's been on a downward spiral since then, apparently trying to balance these two sides of the show: a commitment to serious and socially-conscious plot points, but a complete inability to pull them off given the hammy execution.
So we get things like the January 6 storming of the Capitol namechecked, but only because Bradley was the lone reporter on the inside, cut off from her team and somehow still broadcasting live to the nation from her phone (probably of the 'i' variety given the streamer).
But like And Just Like That began to seem it was revelling in the dire, cringe absurdity of its goings-ons, The Morning Show similarly feels like it's itching to dive headfirst into glorious excess on an Apple budget.
That's apparent nowhere more than when the camera is trained on Cory, who is gifted set piece after set piece and deranged monologue after deranged monologue. He is always having a fiendishly good time.
Yet, when Alex and Yanko (Néstor Carbonell) are hosting TMS and reel at the "f**king tough pivot" from a segment on long-lost twins finding each other during a pie eating contest to what's up next: "A conversation about race in corporate America", you are left wondering how self-aware The Morning Show just might be about its own absurdity. (A glimpse into this writers' room would be an absolute treat.)
The central tenets of both The Morning Show and And Just Like That are fairly similar: social issue storylines that don't make much sense, inexplicable plot points – who remembers Charlotte's snowy condom run for her teenage daughter? – and an absolute refusal to craft a character we want to root for.
Yet despite its litany of faults, these aren't strict 'hate watch' shows in the way something like The Idol was, because we enjoy inhabiting these worlds week-to-week. It's the campy, cringe which keeps us coming back because the nonsense is fun. It's more 'mess watch' than 'hate watch'.
One thing is for sure: when The Morning Show inevitably flashes back to Bradley singlehandedly fighting off the rioters in the Capitol, we'll be there, hooked with every moment and trying not to resist the tickle of a dry smile dissolving into peals of laughter.
The Morning Show seasons 1-2 and the first three episodes of season 3 are streaming now on Apple TV+.
Previously Deputy TV Editor at Digital Spy and, before that, a TV Reporter at The Mirror, Rebecca can now be found crafting expert analysis of the TV landscape, when she's not talking on the BBC or Times Radio about everything from the latest season of Bridgerton or The White Lotus to whatever chaos is unfolding in the various Love Island villas. When she's not bingeing a boxset, in-the-wild sightings of Rebecca have included stints on the National TV Awards and BAFTAs red carpets, and post-match video explainers of the reality TV we're all watching.
